Single in the Sanctuary: In Search of a “Normal Life”

True confession: I have had many moments when I wish I was a Stepford Wife…

Now, 90-95% of my life I wouldn’t want to be a cookie cutter girl. And if you know me, you know that I’m far from being cut from the same cloth as everyone else.

In my twenties, I was a member of the Junior League. As most of the members were wives with husbands who made upper-middle to lower-upper class salaries, my single self who made a lower-middle class non-profit salary felt extremely out of place. There were more times in those early years when I wanted to have the lives of the women who surrounded me.

The harder I tried to have lives like theirs, the more I was being called away from that lifestyle. I was a trapezoid-shaped peg attempting to fit into a round hole.

Since my twenties, I stopped caring about living the rich or semi-rich life and having a bazillion square foot house – especially now that I’m a pastor. I appreciate being able to support myself and take pride in not “needing” a man to take care of me but rather having a man in my life to walk besides me.

Being single past your early-to-mid thirties is hard to swallow – mostly because we’re different than most of society. Some days adapting to this is not exactly easy. I remember questioning God and shaking my fist to the Divine. Why can’t my life be as “ideal” as most of those around me, God?

Of course, ideal is what it looks like on the outside… We don’t know what happens offline…

Remember when Carrie Bradshaw says to her friends in a season two episode of Sex and the City “The world is made up of two types of women: the simple girls and the Katie girls. I’m a Katie girl.” The “Katie girl” is in reference to Barbara Streisand’s character in The Way We Were. Carrie was another trapezoid-shaped peg trying to fit into a round hole. There are people who follow social graces, speak well, dress impeccably, have perfect home and look like a polished human being. That was not Carrie Bradshaw.

That is not me. And at 43, I’m pretty resigned to the fact that it will never be me.

I wasn’t made to be a Stepford Wife or president of Junior League or a simple girl or a cookie-cutter life. I wasn’t called to have a life that mirrors most everyone else. I wasn’t made to be the same as most of my friends and colleagues. I am quirky, nerdy, weird and wonderfully made.

I aspire to one day own a townhouse. I hope to have a smaller wedding someday that reflects who we are as a couple and looks much less like a production. I hope to keep preaching, keep writing, keep advocating and keep being just slightly more quirky than most people I know.

Simple Girls, Stepford Wives and normal people who fit the mold of a cookie-cutter (if they truly exist) are just as much made in God’s image, loved by God, used by God and are called by God. And those of us who are “Katie girls” who don’t fit molds and are weird and nerdy and complicated in almost every part of their lives are also made in God’s image, loved by God, used by God and are called by God. We are all just asked by God to share God’s love in a variety of ways.

In the words of Oscar Wilde “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”